What motivates girls to choose a career in technology?

Studies of young people’s motivation to pursue a career in technology have often focused on when and how interest in technology develops. Many teenagers lose interest in science and technology, and because his affects girls more than boys, it leaves a short gap to capture girls’ interest, it has been argued. Many initiatives to increase girls’ interest have been designed based on images of boys’ interest in video gaming and programming. The problem is that this type of interest is also gendered. We are in the process of concluding a survey among girls in Norway with nearly 700 respondents who were studying science and technology at high schools and universities.

What has been the most important motivation for your choice of studying in science and technology?

When we asked the girls this question, the top 9 motivating factors were all related to working life and society:

• 93% agreed that exciting job opportunities in technology was an important motivation
• 80% were strongly motivated by the possibility of using technology for solving social issues.

In the opposite end of the scale we found activities associated with boys:

• less than 5% of the girls have been motivated through after-school/leisure time activities involving technology
• less than 14% found video games motivating for choosing technology at high school or university.

These findings support our previous empirical research finding that many girls are motivated by other things than technology when they enter tech education. The report (in Norwegian) will be out soon, for those who want to read more! References Corneliussen, H.G. (2020) “Dette har jeg aldri gjort før, så dette er jeg sikkert skikkelig flink på” – Rapport om kvinner i IKT og IKT-sikkerhet, Sogndal: VF-rapport 8/2020. Corneliussen, H.G. (2020) ‘What Brings Women to Cybersecurity? A Qualitative Study of Women’s Pathways to Cybersecurity in Norway’ European Interdisciplinary Cybersecurity Conference (Eicc 2020). Talks, I., Edvinsson, I., & Birchall, J. (2019). Programmed Out: The gender gap in technology in Scandinavia. Oslo: Plan International Norway. McKinsey & Company and Pivotal Ventures. (2018). Rebooting representation – using CSR and philanthropy to close the gender gap in tech. https://www.rebootrepresentation.org/report-highlights/: Tech Report 2018 [Accessed March 2021]. Microsoft Corporation. (2017). Why Europe’s Girls Aren’t Studying STEM. – Microsoft Philanthropies.